Perkins’ diagnosis may be a sprained right knee that will be
re-evaluated today, but Ray Allen sounded like he was saying goodbye
last night.

“It’s terribly unfortunate,” said [Ray Allen]. “You hate to see
that (happen to) anybody, if it was this team or the other team. But we
have to do this for him. We have to push forward, and there are guys on
the bench that can step up and make the plays that Perk is capable of,
or has made over the course of our time here.

“So you know, it does make Glen (Davis) more valuable, and Rasheed
(Wallace) will play more minutes and definitely Shelden (Williams) will
be in there a lot more,” said Allen. “We’re going to be counting on
them.”

I know I'm not the first person to say this, but it's just a kick in the jewels that a guy who had spent the entire series on his best behavior avoiding the dreaded 7th technical ends up missing Game 7 anyway because of this injury.

Of course, we don't know for sure that he's missing the game, but it would be a shock if he can play at all. The only glimmer of hope is that he was walking on his own power after the game and he says he's going to try to go tomorrow. That's a good sign, and one you should know about… but I don't want to get everyone's hopes up, either. Today, obviously, is a huge day.

Without Perk, we're going to need a big performance out of Rasheed Wallace. The Celtics are going to need him to play against Pau Gasol because Glen Davis is just not big enough to bother him in the post. Sure, Baby can push him way from the hoop, but this isn't Dwight Howard here. Gasol can hit from 15 feet away with no one bothering his shot.

The Celtics can do it without Kendrick Perkins… but this just got a whole lot harder.

On Page 2, This "together" thing is still a problem

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

"I thought we would play better, obviously," said Celtics coach Doc
Rivers. "I thought they were ready. I just thought the Lakers played
harder, better. They executed, they trusted more. I thought we played
an individual game tonight, really on both ends. They jumped on us with
50 whatever points in the first half, so we never had a chance to get
into transition, to get Rondo going, which I thought hurt him.

"And we never gave ourselves an opportunity offensively because we
didn't trust tonight. Everybody was trying to make their own plays. When
we've done that this year, we've lost games. We've been blown out in
some of those games, and if you do that against a team like the Lakers,
and a team like the Lakers who are really ready to play and play
desperate, you're going to lose, and I thought we did that."

The Celtics have this bad habit of trying to be heroes in big games. No matter how many times Doc says "Together" on those mic'd up segments… the C's don't seem to get the message.

However, there's a bright side to the blowout. The Celtics may be the best team at flipping that post-blowout "momentum" back to their own side.

They followed a 124-95 Game 3 loss to Cleveland with a 97-87 win.

They followed a 113-92 Game 5 loss to Orlando with a 96-84 win.

They followed a 102-89 Game 1 loss to the Lakers with a 103-94 win in LA.

I know I keep going to boxing analogies in these things but that's what these series are like. The Celtics are good fighters. They can be technicians that slowly pick their opponents apart with a variety of combinations. But they can't resist going for the big knockout punch when they've got their opponent on the ropes. And they always seem to get caught with big shots when they do that. They end up on the canvas and they lose a round… badly.

But to them it's just a round. It's not the end of the fight. They bounce back in the next round knowing that they can go back to what they've done before and continue picking that guy apart.

Maybe a few guys were trying to win the MVP. Maybe they felt desperate because some guys were not hitting. But whatever it is… they need to stop.

Of course, it would help if they made some of the layups and stopped missing dunks. And it would help if they turned Sasha Vujacic back into Sasha Vujacic. And playing Celtics basketball will do that.

This may sound lame, but I think the shock of Perk going down combined with the short rest and travel hurt the execution big time last night.
Game 7 is going to be a ‘will’ game. Whichever team comes out making extra passes, and boxes out on defense, (boards anyone?), is gonna take it.
Throw away the game tape. Re-watch the film of Perk being sidelined and the bench going bonkers.
I’ll jump on the wagon, ‘Sheed, this is your time to make it all count. Stage doesn’t get any bigger than this big guy.

http://profile.typepad.com/6p01156f6a54c2970c ToTheRuins

I feel bad for Perkins, and what a big loss.
What a dissapointment last night was, A chance to clinch a championship and avoid a game 7, and we can barely put 70 points on the board…but obviously give the lakers credit..
I honestly cant say im that suprised though, just dissapointed…I saw us losing this series after we stole homecourt and came right back home and lost it in game 3, no matter what happened in games 4 and 5, I knew we had already won our game in LA, and it will take the perfect game to win another one, now in a game 7

NineSevenEight

I hate to be a pessimist, but those stats of the Celtics bouncing back after blow outs have no bearing on the outcome of the game tomorrow night in my opinion. The same way 47-0 doesn’t. The same way the winner of Game 3 wins the series at a higher percentage. The same way the winner of Game 5 wins the series at a higher percentage.
To me, all of those numbers we use to help ourselves stay optimistic go out the window in a do or die situation. Although I’d love the stats to prove positive for the C’s in the end, the Celtics can’t use them as a crutch, and neither should we. When you start expecting the same results because history says it’s true, you’re in trouble.
What I do know is that tomorrow night’s game will be career defining on both sides. Rasheed Wallace’s Celtics career will be remembered most for what he brings tomorrow night, good or bad.
Random thoughts….
Rondo needs to play smarter. He’s playing tentative and it’s completely affecting his game and mentality. He’s going for jaw dropping shots and passes when all they need is basic, fundamental basketball. He missed an easy, uncontested reverse lay up last night by trying to spin it off the glass. That’s not the kind of play the Celtics needed to make a run.
What gives me anxiety about a Game 7 in LA is not Perk, but a one possession game in the final seconds. That’s why Game 6 was so important even if the odds were stacked against them with travel and Perk going down. It doesn’t get much better in Game 7 on the road. Especially when we haven’t heard seen heard the names Salvatore or Washington in the last two games. Something tells me we will on Thursday.
Lastly, clearly this moment is too big for Shelden Williams. He’s drastically underperformed in comparison to his serviceable regular season numbers. He can’t play in a Celtics uniform again. That blocked dunk looked like a guy that was trying to impress the veterans; trying to make a statement and rally his team. He is not a leader, yet was trying to do too much as a barely there role player. I expect him to fall behind Scal in Game 7.

thetitleisours

This team from the Cleveland series on has shown that it can bounce back. I do not know who will win game seven, but I know we will be close to the end.

NineSevenEight

Game 3 looms large over the Celtics right now. Bill Walton said it in the pregame and I was a taken aback by his doubt. Now, not so much. That’s hindsight, I guess.But realistically in the NBA Finals, it’s very difficult to win three straight even at home.

http://profile.typepad.com/6p01156f6a54c2970c ToTheRuins

Paul Pierce declared they wouldnt come back to LA, which made it all the worse…they really had game 3 in their grasp and singlehandedly let derek fisher beat them….I didnt get that excited over games 4 and 5 cause they blew the golden oppurtunity in game 3 a game after there captains prediction…Good luck to our guys in this game 7, cause they gonna need it

NineSevenEight

I agree on Game 3, but gimme a break on the Paul Pierce on-court trash talk that was barely audible on tape. That’s really reaching. What should he say? “Well, I want to drop Game 3 and bounce back with wins in Game 4 & 5.” He said that because he was confident enough in his team to go home and win 3. What’s wrong with that? He didn’t even say it in the media. If this was 25 years ago, no one but the players on the court and ten people on the sidelines would have ever known that was said. It’s ridiculous. He made no public declarations. Guys do this all the time. Reggie Miller and his choke sign rings a bell. That was overt.
And, I’m sorry, Paul Pierce isn’t the only guy to harp on in this series. If anyone needs to take a good hard look in the mirror, it’s Rajon Rondo. He needs to figure out how he’s going to get back to leading the team, making good decisions, not throwing away the ball, keeping lay ups simple instead of trying to spin them off the glass all the time, and hitting free throws at a higher frequency than 25% and that stat may be being generous. I’m waiting to see the Rondo of Game 2.

http://profile.typepad.com/6p01156f5ebb21970c JD

On offense, Paul needs to stop turning the ball over everytime he drives the lane, its getting ridiculous how much he does that. And Rondo just needs to play simpler; take the open jumper, take the open shot instead of trying to make an impossible pass, don’t get too cute around the rim.
Defensively is tougher, as the Laker pick and roll is killing the Celtics. I thought they also overreacted to Kobe whenever he made a move towards the basket and that allowed Artest and Vujacic to get open shots. They have to stick to the plan: let Kobe get his and shut everyone else down.
There’s no doubt in my mind though that the Celtics will have to play nearly perfect to win this game, though.

http://profile.typepad.com/6p01156f6a54c2970c ToTheRuins

Rondo hasnt played spectacular, especially last night, but hes been as good as any other celtic, if not better, for the series…they’ve all been inconsistent..
and the only people it really matters that heard pierce delcare that, are the lakers…who cares about the media or public…why say that…although ur right ultimately it means nothing..just too bad he didnt back it up

NineSevenEight

Nobody is using anything someone says in the Finals as motivation for the simple fact that it’s….THE FINALS. No one needs “added motivation” to win. If that were the case, the Celtics would have blown the doors off with what Phil said about them in Game 5. Which wasn’t even statistically true because it was the Wizards that blew the most leads in the regular season and the Celtics weren’t even second or third on that list. How did that “motivational speech” speech work out for Phil in the fourth? It’s pointless to split hairs about what somebody said on the basketball court and correlate it to a win.

Ohio Celtics Fan

You guys are all giving reasons why the Celtics can’t win…what you are forgetting is that they CAN! I like there chances!

I bleed green in L.A.

Such a closet celtic hater.

DRJ

- The fact that Perk walked on his power is not incidental, it’s HUGE. He wouldn’t do it if he had torn a ligament. In fact, the video of the injury was quite benign, and I EXPECT him to play on Thursday.
– There is no reasonable explanation for the Celtics’ level of effort and play in game 6 other than: THE FIX WAS IN. This was always going to be a 7-game series, one way or another.
So all the analyses of what they did wrong in game 6 are worthless. That was not a real game. Kobe knew it… in his interview, he was absolutely CERTAIN — he even smiled/laughed when he said it — that the Celtics’ play in game 7 would be nothing like game 6. He knows what happened in game 6. And he knows the Cs are going to come down VERY HARD in game 7.
Game 6 is very meaningful in that it proved, finally, that the the series was fixed to go to 7. But it’s meaningless in terms of actual play. So don’t sweat the details of what happened. It’s irrelevant.
Both teams will fight their hardest in game 7. I expect the Cs to win, because they’re better. But of course, anything can happen in any single game.

Leo

Are you kidding me? A fix? So, the Celtics played poorly on purpose to get a game 7? Come on…

SydneyCeltic

Not giving up until it’s all over. Even then, I’m with Doc re: this window not closing as quickly as everyone thinks it will.
That said, Game 7 will be amazing. And I truly believe the C’s will take it.